Originally published at: Mundane games rule | Boing Boing
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This is absolutely true. Sometimes, all those games where you run around in a frenzy killing things get to be just… too… much. I find I like more relaxing games these days. Not sure a powering washing game is in my future, but the puzzle game Dorfromantik has become one of my recent favorites since it was recommended by Boing Boing earlier this year.
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Off topic aside– this is a blistering piece of prose, @beschizza . Your writing keeps me coming back to BB. 
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…and still cant get the kids to tidy their rooms.
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the venn diagram of games, labor and crypto intersected a few years back
Now known as “Web3”.
I can see how these games might be relaxing for a certain kind of knowledge worker. The tasks are mildly complex (more so than a cookie-clicker type game) but are also more straightforward and predictable with immediate results (unlike most big titles from AAA studios).
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Came to say the same thing!
@beschizza - we’re glad you’re here!
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Not a video game but maybe along the same lines, I found Richard Osmond’s House of Games to be a very relaxing watch during the last few years of chaos. It’s an incredibly low stakes quiz/panel show that seems to purposely not juice up the tension at all.
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yea, I feel this, I’ve been playing a lot of “ΔV: Rings of Saturn” where I drift lazily through an asteroid field and turn rocks into smaller rocks, it’s very soothing
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mentions Lawn Mowing Simulator and Powerwash Simulator.
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When do we find out this isn’t a game, and it’s just a renderized video feed from a robot power washer that you’re being tricked into directing so it does a complete and thorough job?
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Robot power washers must have awesome cameras.
Is it somehow easy to make such strange sims?
- Use different tools to work on tanks:
- Rust Removal Tool
- Sand Blaster
- Paint Gun
- Hammer
- Grinder - to cut and grind
- Wrench pistol - to quickly disassemble rusted screws/bolts
Experience the full process of renovation:
- Clean the tank from mud
- De-rust the tank
- Sandblast the tank
- Apply primer paint to the tank
- Apply final paint to the tank (factory paint)
- Add custom paint, camouflage, color, decal in the paint room
- Sell the tank or put it in your museum to gain money and reputation
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Along a similar vein, I’ve found Viscera Cleanup Detail to be somewhat relaxing. Aliens and demons from hell have invaded our space bases and research facilities, but don’t worry, the Big Damn Hero already came through with guns blazing and took care of it. Now they need someone to pick up the spent bullet casings, dispose of the bodies and pieces thereof, mop up the blood, and neatly restack the gratuitous crates and barrels.
It might have been designed more as a funny physics game multiplayer where you ostensibly try to do a task but everybody just ends up making it worse. But it’s possible to actually tidy everything up near perfectly as well.
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Always comes to mind. I’m all for digitally-enhanced meditation, but I haven’t found the right one for me yet.
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You beat me to it. Pat Gill’s videos, well everybody of the Polygon video team’s videos, are always worth watching.
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Yeah, I’m still gonna want that small pine (fir?) moving gun.
The cut-fit landscaping cloth retcon drills.
The home version of hung ‘rock’ ceiling refits (a cousin removed from asbestos, maybe.)
Marimba of steel roofing x Nebraska hailstorm sim. Enough of those ads…
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Best non-violent game ever.
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Or the recent Hardspace: Shipbreaker, where you take perfectly good spaceships and chop them into bits for recycling, while trying to work off your debt to the mega-corp that literally owns you. (You win by forming a union).
Yes, it should just feel like work, but somehow I find it relaxing to pick the optimal route of chopping, disassembling, and deactivating each ship.
The music is some nice low-key sort of Firefly type stuff:
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